School of Law Introduces LLM Program in International Criminal Law

International criminal law has become one of the fastest growing and highest profile areas of law. Taught by leading experts in the field, the Case Western Reserve University LLM in International Criminal law will provide individuals who hold a degree in law with an in-depth knowledge of international criminal law and procedure, international humanitarian law, and national security law, and will equip them to practice international criminal law before international tribunals or national courts.

There are seven unique aspects of the Case Western Reserve International Criminal Law LLM:

Case Western Reserve is known around the world for the strength of its international criminal law program. Program faculty include a former State Department official, a former Senior Counsel at the IMF, the former head of the International Branch in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s International and Operational Law Division, an Assistant US Attorney who tried terrorism cases, and a Senior Coast Guard lawyer. Reflecting the strength of our program, in 2005, the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone nominated our War Crimes Research initiative for the Nobel Peace Prize, and, in 2008, the Case Jessup International Law Moot Court team won the world championship round of the Jessup Competition.

Our International Criminal Law LLM Program is designed as an elite and intimate program, with enrollment limited to 10 LLM students per year. One of those students will be a full-scholarship “Distinguished Visiting Jurist,” whose presence is designed to enhance the program and facilitate networking.

Among the 18 international criminal law-related courses we offer, students can enroll in the War Crimes Research Lab, the Homeland Security Lab, or the Global Financial Integrity Lab, in which students write research memoranda at the request of war crimes tribunals, government agencies, and the IMF/World Bank on cutting edge issues pending before those institutions.

Our International Criminal Law LLM students may receive a semester’s worth of credit by interning at one of six international war crimes tribunals in the spring semester of the program.

Our international Criminal Law LLM students are invited to be editors of War Crimes Prosecution Watch, an e-newsletter that goes out every two weeks to war crimes prosecutors, judges, and more than 15,000 experts in the field.

We host two annual major international criminal law-related symposia which bring dozens of leading experts in the field to the Law School each year. Recent speakers have included: Brenda Hollis, Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Stephen Rapp, US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues; Sir Christopher Greenwood, UK Judge on the International Court of Justice; Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Robert Petit, Chief Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; Richard Goldstone, author of the Goldstone Commission Report on Gaza; General John Altenburg, Convening Authority, Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions; and Cherif Bassiouni, “the father of international criminal law.”

We have placed 55 students in internships at the six international war crimes tribunals, and our alumni include the Deputy to the President of the Rwanda Tribunal, a Senior Legal Adviser at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, two members of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a prosecutor in the Office of Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, the former Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, several distinguished law professors, and President Obama’s Chief of Protocol.